That wacky millennium!

or

Stuff That Happened from 1001 C.E. to 2000 C.E.

Now that the Second Millennium has drawn to a close, let us sit back and savor
our memories of the events that shaped our world. Or shaped our
country. Or didn't shape much of anything. And of course, these
probably won't really be memories to you unless you're around a thousand
years old. But don't let that stop you. Just pause for a moment
with me here, won't you, and reflect on these Days Gone By.

At the end of the First Millennium, Rome had long since fallen. The Dark
Ages were drawing to a close and the Medieval Period was beginning (although
the term "dark ages" wasn't actually coined until the Renaissance, as part of
an effort to make the past look bad). The stirrup had changed the face of
warfare. Somebody had just invented that, that thing, what do you call
it, that harness that goes around a horse's neck and puts the load on the
animal's shoulders? That thing. And it changed the course of
history, too, believe you me! Also, the modern notion of "progress"
pretty much didn't exist; the view of the future was that every day was bleaker
than the next, so hurry up and end, world, we're rootin' for that Second
Coming. Or at least that's what somebody told me, and it sounded like a
good story so I'm reprinting it here. In fact, all of my alleged
historical facts pretty much belong in the hearsay category. I ain't a
historian. I don't need to be. All I need to do is publish false
information on a webpage and everybody will send me e-mail correcting it, won't
you? Ah, the beauty of modern technology.

And if there's a favorite Historical Event of yours that happened in this
millennium but that I left out (no, your first date does not count), send it to
rogermw@ix.netcom.com and I may or
may not get around to reading it.

1001 – The First Millennium officially ends and the Second Millennium
begins. The world does not come to an end. The Book of Revelation
fails to come true, despite widespread predictions that it would. Those
wacky doomsayers!

1009 – The first European paper mill is built by the Moors in Xativa,
Spain. Paper is a lot cheaper than parchment or vellum, and thus lays the
groundwork for the eventual invention of the printing press, bureaucracy, the
bookmobile, and junk mail. That wacky strained pulp!

1066 – The Normans conquer England, laying the foundation for the
eventual evolution of the modern English language (and the coining of the word
"wacky"). Those wacky Frenchmen!

1095 – Pope Urban II receives a request from the Byzantine Empire for a
few extra soldiers, which he turns into an excuse to recruit an enormous army
and send it to "reclaim the Holy Land" of Jerusalem from the Turks. And
the Moslems and Jews, of course. Lots of people die. That wacky
First Crusade!

1139 – The Second Lateran Council prohibits Catholic priests from
marrying. This restriction lasts through the end of the millennium and
beyond, resulting in a whole lot of sexually frustrated priests. That
wacky Pope Innocent II!

1160 – Leonin, at the College of Notre Dame, starts writing music
featuring two or more voices/instruments that don't always have to be in
consonant harmony with one another. It's called Melismatic Organum, and
it paved the way for pretty much all later Western modal and tonal
harmony. Those wacky polyphonists!

1206 – Everybody in Mongolia unites under Genghis Khan, which is
Mongolian for "Universal Ruler". He eventually gets a Star Trek
villain named after him. That wacky spiked fur hat!

1206-1260 – The "Great" Mongol War happens. Lots of people
die. Those wacky empire builders!

1215 – King John of England and his subject Barons sign the Articles of
the Barons, which the barons make a few little revisions to and publish as the
Magna Carta (Latin for "Big Letter"). It protects certain personal rights
from being usurped by later laws, and lays the foundation for later turning
England from an absolute monarchy into a representative democracy. Of
course, American historians will later claim that the U.S. Constitution
invented the whole thing. Those wacky Parliamentarians!

1231 – Pope Gregory IX publishes a decree calling for life imprisonment
with salutary penance for heretics who confessed and repented, and capital
punishment (by burning at the stake) for heretics who persisted.
Along with confiscation of all the heretic's property, of course.
This begins the Papal Inquisition. That wacky Order of Friars Preachers!

1248 – Roger Bacon finally figures out an old Chinese invention, and
describes the composition of gunpowder to primitive, backward Europe.
Captain Kirk will later use this knowledge to defeat the lizard-like
Gorn. That wacky charcoal-sulphur-saltpeter mixture!

1258 – The Mongolians take over Baghdad. They do to several of its
libraries what Arabs had done to the great library at Alexandria six centuries
earlier. The first inklings of the scientific method, which had taken a
tenuous hold in the Arab world for the first time since the age of Hellenistic
Greece, are likewise snuffed out. It will be over three centuries before
the sparks of the scientific revolution will be independently rekindled in
Europe. Those wacky Hordesmen!

1260 – The Mongolians take over China and Uzbekistan, and leave a Golden
Horde lying around in western Russia. Out of spite, everybody else
uses the term "Mongoloid" to mean "deformed person". So there.
That wacky Yuan Dynasty!

1275 – Marco Polo (and a bunch of other guys nobody remembers) visit
Kubla Khan in China, giving primitive, backward Europe its first glimpse of the
bustling east-Asian economy. This eventually causes the Age of
Exploration. Those wacky Mongolian Chinese!

1284 – Salvino D'Armate, an Italian craftsman, invents eye glasses,
allowing those far-sighted people who could afford them to read as well as
everybody else. The eventual invention of distance-vision glasses, and
the resulting decline in selection pressure, will result in a 25% near-sighted
population by the end of the millennium. Those wacky concave lenses!

1297 – Mel "Braveheart" Gibson single-handedly defeats the entire English
army at Stirling Bridge in Scotland by shooting fireballs out of his eyes and
lightning from his arse. His enemy, king Patrick "Longshanks" McGoohan,
was an evil Satan-worshipping tyrant who reinstituted the jus primae
noctis and sucked the blood out of babies at night. Or maybe the
Scottish were exaggerating juuuuust a wee bit. Those wacky
bagpipes!

1300 – A big cold wave hits Europe. Even big fancy expensive houses
now need to be heated during the winter. The chimney is invented as a
result. Those wacky central-heating enthusiasts!

1307 – King Philip "the Fair" of France accuses the Knights Templar of
heresy, tortures them until they confess to being Mohammed worshippers, then
burns them at the stake. All so that he could get out of his debts to
them. Those wacky military monks!

1347 – The Black Death breaks out. Over a third of the people
living in Europe die from the Plague. Cats, which look sort-of demonic,
are blamed. And since rats carry bubonic-Plague-infested fleas
to humans, cats could have halted its progress; but nooooooo.
Those wacky superstitions!

1370s – Pope Gregory XI's monks become obsessed with devoting each
possible instant of their lives to correctly worshipping God, which causes them
to invent the second (1/60 of a minute, the way a minute was 1/60 of an
hour). Those wacky timekeepers!

1378 – The Catholic church gets two popes. Hilarity
ensues. Every country has to decide whether to side with the Roman Pope
or the French Pope. Pity those poor countries that happen to pick the
wrong side. That wacky Schism!

1390-ish – Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales, which may have
single-handedly saved the English language from oblivion. That wacky
suggestive poet!

1409 – The Council of Pisa declares both Catholic popes to be
deposed and elects a new one. However, the other two popes refuse to step
down, so now the Catholic Church has three popes. Those wacky
Popes in the Pizza!

1437 – Mukhammad Tarag'ay Ulug'bek compiles the first revised star map
since the time of Hipparchus. Twelve years later, he gets his head
chopped off by Muslim extremists in Afghanistan for saying "Religion disperses
like a fog, kingdoms perish, but the works of scholars remain for an
eternity." You tell 'em, Ulug. That wacky observatory builder!

1450 – Johannes Gutenberg re-invents the movable type printing
press. Mass communication suddenly becomes much, much cheaper and more
reliable. Sorta like what the web is allegedly doing today. This
eventually causes literacy to be commonplace and inadvertently dethrones the
Catholic church. Those wacky typebars!

1453 – Constantinople finally falls to the Ottoman Turks, partly thanks
to the invention of cast-bronze gunpowder-propelled cannons that pack a much
bigger wallop than plain old catapults. This seals the coffin on the last
living vestige of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. The invaders
rename Constantinople "Istanbul," which means "The City." Now the Roman
Catholic Church has no competition anywhere in the world in the Christianity
business. On the plus side, the invading Ottomans did bring this esoteric
cleansing substance called "soap" with them. Those wacky Byzantines!

1492 – Ferdinand and Isabella, having united Spain, overthrow the Spanish
moslems. Jews living in Spain, who have been treated poorly under Moslem
rule, are now treated poorly under Catholic rule. Spanish Jews are given
3 months to convert to Catholicism or pack their bags and get the heck
out. To root out the Jews that said they'd converted to
Catholicism but were still celebrating the sabbath on Saturday (or other such
blasphemous heresies), Torquemada's Spanish Inquisition gets nasty. As
Mel Brooks will later remark, you can't torq 'em ada anything. In fact,
the only thing that will be worse than the Inquisitors is the Protestant
press's exaggeration of their atrocities. Those wacky torturers!

That very same year – Cristoforo Colombo, an avid fan of Marco
Polo's writings, cajoles Ferdinand and Isabella into giving him a miniscule
fleet of ships so he can sail around the world and plunder Japan.
Fortunately, everyone who can read at the time knows that the world is
round. Unfortunately, there is a continent in the way between Spain and
Japan, and when Columbus bangs into it he thinks he's missed Japan and landed
one one of the other islands off the east coast of Asia, which at the time was
called India. (He even calls the people "Indians" and an island chain the
"East Indies". Today we've corrected this mistake and now call the island
chain the "West Indies".) Years later, after ransacking several small
native villages and returning with a few boatloads of slaves (all in the name
of the Church, of course), he ends up broken and in prison because the land and
people he's plundered don't have any gold. That wacky capital of Ohio!

1498 – Somebody or other in Augsburg, Germany invents rifling: spiral
grooves in the barrel of a gun that spin the bullet and greatly increase the
gun's accuracy. Real rifles won't actually be used on the battlefield for
nearly another three centuries, however. That wacky Kentucky windage!

1512 – Nicholas Copernicus publishes his De Revolutionibus Orbium
Coelestium, in which he says (1) that the planets probably go around
the sun instead of the Earth, because this is the best way to explain their
perceived motions across the sky, and (2) that the Earth also goes around
the sun, because, hey, it's neater that way. He calculates tables
to predict where a given planet will be on a specific date using this new
model, and they end up being no more accurate than tables calculated according
to the old model. That wacky Index of Forbidden Books!

1530 – Germany decides it's had enough with the Catholic Church, and
starts up its own church. It's pretty much the same as the Catholic
church, witch-trials and all, except they write their bibles in German
(with 12 Old Testament books omitted) and don't take orders from the
Pope. That wacky Martin Luther!

1540 – Pope Paul III gives the go-ahead for Ignatius of Loyola to invent
the Jesuits. They build lots of schools and get lots of widows'
inheritances. That wacky Society of Jesus!

1542 – As if the Papal and Spanish versions of the Inquisition weren't
enough, Pope Paul III invents the Roman Inquisition. Fortunately,
this new "Holy Office" is more concerned with academic orthodoxy than with
burning heretics — at least until the next Pope takes over. That
wacky Protestant Reformation scare!

1545 – The Catholic Church retaliates against the Protestant Reformation
by instigating the Counter-Reformation. All the Catholic leaders
sit down in Trent and decide what to do about the fact that Catholicism
is no longer as popular as it used to be and, in a marketing ploy no less
savvy than the invention of "New Coke", make their Church even meaner and
stricter than it was before. That wacky Commission of Cardinals!

1555 – Michele de No[s]tredame gets a reputation as a clairvoyant, and
writes The Centuries. Four hundred years of vague, failed
predictions have not diminished a gullible public's need to view this work
as Divine, Inerrant Prophecy. Those wacky seers!

1563 – Remember that plague we had in 1347? Well, it's back.
That wacky Black Death!

1580-ish – The Snaphaunce company invents the flint-lock. That
wacky sure-fire trigger!

1582 – Pope Gregory XIII takes credit for a new Calendar that omits the
Leap Year on 3 out of every 4 years that end with 00. That wacky 10-day
calendar adjustment!

1590 – Antony van Leeuwenhoek invents the microscope, or ar the very
least improves it significantly. That wacky Saturday Night Live
"Bad Musical"!

1607 – The Virginia Company of Great Britain sets up permanent base
camp on the east coast of North America, becoming (I believe) the first
British colony on the continent. One of the colonists is actually
named John Smith, which probably causes all sorts of giggles when he and
his wife register at a hotel. Those wacky Jamestowners!

1609 – Johannes Kepler publishes his Astronomia Nova, in which
he lays down his 3 laws of planetary motion. Unlike Copernicus's
attempt 97 years earlier, when Kepler calculates planetary-position tables
based on this model, his results are 100 times more accurate than
any work previously published. The heliocentric universe finally
gets its time in the sun, so to speak. Those wacky elliptical
trajectories!

1610 – Galileo turns the recently-invented telescope toward the heavens
and sees spots on the sun. Years later, he goes blind from glaucoma
and cataracts, but that doesn't discourage people from blaming it on his
staring at the sun so damn much. Those wacky non-smoked lenses!

1620 – Sir Francis Bacon publishes his Novum Organum, in which
he comes out and says what's been "in the air" among the scientific community
for some time: that inductive reasoning by experiment is how you find out
about stuff. He also writes all of Shakespeare's plays, then changes
his first name to Kevin and becomes the center of the Hollywood universe.
That wacky scientific method!

1660 – Robert Boyle publishes New Experiments Physio-Mechanical,
Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects, marking the first time
that inductive scientific reasoning is applied to the topic of chemistry.
Everything chemical that had gone before was pretty much the rantings of
horny alchemists. That wacky Boyle's Law!

1687 – Hooke and Halley (of Hooke's Law and Halley's Comet fame) publish
Newton's Principia Mathematica, whose title is actually a slam at
Descartes' Principia Philosophiae. Physics will never be the
same. Those wacky Laws of Motion!

1692 – The witch-hunting craze in Europe finally reaches the good ol'
U.S. of A.. Or Massachusetts, at least. 21 residents of Salem
Hill are hanged for allegedly being witches. Those wacky possessed
schoolgirls!

1753 – Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning rod. Big tall gothic
church spires, which provide wonderful lightning targets and used to be
the first things to get hit in a thunderstorm, are now immune to that ol'
Holy Fire from the Sky. This unfortunately undermines one of the
bigger superstitions many churches were based on ("That other church got
hit by lightning as punishment from God; we're the holiest!"), and as such
was initially denounced as Tampering in God's Domain. Those wacky
Leiden jars!

1762 – John Montagu(e), the fourth Earl of Sandwich, invents his own
namesake. This leads to Subway and Togos restaurant chains, and the
peanut butter industry. It's the best thing since sliced bread —
which, by the way, won't be invented until 1928. That wacky compulsive
gambler!

1776 – 13 British colonies in North America decide they're sick and tired
of being British colonies and declare independence. By sheer coincidence,
the same year, Adam Weishaupt invents the Bavarian Illuminati; this little club
for intellectuals eventually gets blamed for every economic policy worldwide,
even the ones put into practice before the club was founded. Those wacky
Radical Freemasons!

1776-1781 – The American Revolutionary War happens. Lots of people
die. That wacky Continental army!

1777 – The U.S. Battle of Saratoga happens, in which British general
Burgoyne surrenders — thanks, in part, to a Continental sniper using one
of those newfangled Kentucky rifled muskets. As a result, France and
Spain, neither of whom can stand Great Britain, decide that having Britain lose
13 colonies would be a great way to thumb their noses at the British, and start
helping the Continental Army. This eventually allows the U.S. to win what
would have otherwise been a hopeless struggle, thus leading to U.S. presidents
for the kids to memorize the names of and the Civil War and the
Transcontinental Railroad and Laverne & Shirley. That wacky
General George!

1781 – The 13 former British colonies ratify the Articles of
Confederation, which was inspired by Iroquois society and as far as I know has
never actually been formally dissolved. That wacky Continental Congress!

1783 – The U.S. wins its first war. Colonists who were loyal to
the Brits during the war are sentenced to hang by Judge Lynch. Those
wacky patriots!

1787 – Just six years into the deal, the 13 former British colonies
decide they need something a little "stronger" than the Articles of
Confederation. Their delegates draw up a new Constitution, under which
they'll voluntarily sign away some of their powers to a new central Federal
government ("Federal" being a French word meaning "like a Confederation but
missing the first syllable"). That wacky Constitutional Convention!

That very same year – Antoine Lavoisier builds on Robert Boyle's
primitive chemical work, producing the first chemistry textbook recognizable
to a modern chemist. Just about everybody before him, Oersted included,
was a raving loony in the chemical department — or should I say, the
alchemical department. And the scientific method has already been around
for what, 167 years? Geez, these guys were dense. That wacky
Caloric!

1788 – Despite cries of "There'd be no limit to this new Federal
government's taxing power!", the required number of states ratify the U.S.
Constitution (with the understanding that there are going to be 10 or 12
amendments added which will protect some of their rights). That wacky
three-ring government!

1789 – George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the
United States. This means that both the U.S. and its old enemy, Great
Britain, are now led by a guy named George. That wacky cherry tree
chopper-downer!

1789-1792 – The French Revolution happens. Lots of people
die. Lots more people get Guillotined afterwards. Those wacky
cake-eaters!

1791 – In Paris, Nicholas LeBlanc invents a way to make sodium carbonate
out of sodium chloride, leading to large-scale manufacture of soap. No
single invention in this millennium has probably had a greater or more
far-reaching impact than abundant soap. The difference it made in ones
chance of surviving to adolescence, due to the vastly improved sanitary
conditions it allowed (not to mention its action as a minor disinfectant) was
astounding. The all-encompassing lifestyle change that came with soap was
so profound that unless you're living in a 4th-world country as you read this,
you probably can't even imagine life without it. That wacky
fat-and-soda-ash mixture!

1793 – Lavoisier, the founder of true chemistry and discoverer of the
modern chemical elements, gets rewarded by having his head chopped off
by the French revolutionaries since he was an "intellectual". That
wacky Guillotine!

1803 – Under President Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Congress exceeds its
Constitutional authority by buying the Louisianna Territory. I mean,
sure, it was a great real estate deal and all, but what ever happened to
the Tenth Amendment, huh, guys? That wacky Federal government!

1812 – Jean Samuel Pauly invents the all-in-one metallic firearm
cartridge, which will eventually lead to the machine gun. The U.S.
celebrates by declaring war on Great Britain. Meanwhile, Napoleon's
"invincible" army gets its derrierre kicked by the Russians. That wacky
Tchaikovsky overture!

1814 – We took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty
Mississip'. The U.S. gets its capitol building burned down before it says
"uncle" to the Brits, but still doesn't count the war as a "loss" because it got to
keep its border at the 38th parallel. Or maybe that was Korea. Anyway,
they sign the treaty in Belgium for some reason. That wacky Ghent!

1815 – Napoleon's army is defeated in Abba's first hit song. That
wacky power-mad dictator!

1832 – Michael Faraday invents the electric motor and electric generator, all
without using any algebra. He eventually gets two physics units named after
him, both of which require algebra to use and neither of which has anything to do
with motors or generators. That wacky innumerate!

1833 – Charles Babbage comes up with the idea for the first
general-purpose computer. It's identical in principle to modern computers
except for its separate storage for instructions and data, and even that idea
is getting a boost amongst cache designers. (It also is designed to use
those icky Jacquard loom punched cards that still run on IBM mainframes).
Sadly, his design is far too complex for the machine-making capabilities of the
time. That wacky analytical engine!

1834 – The Act of June 28, 1834 re-defines the U.S. "dollar" from 27.5
grains of 900-fine gold to 25.8 grains of 900-fine gold. (So, no, FDR
wasn't the first person in U.S. history to devaluate the dollar.) That
wacky Gold Standard!

1845 – Ireland, which had become dependent on homegrown potatoes as its
primary food source, has a great big potato crop failure. It has another
crop failure next year, and the year after that. This leads to massive
Irish emigration, bringing Irish Celtic traditions, Irish accents, and Irish
whiskey to Europe and America. That wacky Lucky the Leprechaun!

1851 – The U.S. starts minting its first coin whose metal content is
worth less than its face value. It's a silver 3-cent piece made out of
2-and-a-half cents worth of silver. Thus begins the long slide down the
path toward Perdition — or down the path away from U.S. specie money, at
least. That wacky Treasury department!

1855 – The Springfield rifle company perfects a rifled musket for
military use, which will become the standard "rifle" in the American Civil
War. This greatly increases the effective range of infantry fire and
obsoletes the bayonet-troop-charge tactic. Those wacky telescopic sights!

1856 – Henry Bessemer invents a converter that can produce 60 tons of
steel per hour. Somebody else improves on the process immediately, so the
original Bessemer Converter patent is never used commercially, but the ensuing
Age of Steel wouldn't have happened without Bessemer's invention. This
turns ironclad ships into steelclad ships, reduces the costs of laying
railroads, and spawns a football team in Pittsburg. That wacky
decarbonizing air blower!

1857 – New Yorker Joseph C. Gayetty invents toilet paper. U.S.
stops minting the large bronze 1-cent piece (which was midway in size between a
quarter and a half-dollar coin), and starts minting small 1-cent pieces made
out of 12% nickel. This nickel content supposedly makes up for their
size, 'cause a bronze coin of the same size would be worth less than half a
cent. Those wacky Indian-head pennies!

1861 – 11 U.S. states decide they're sick and tired of being U.S. states
and declare independence. Those wacky States' Rights!

1861-1865 – The American Civil War happens. Enormous numbers of
people die. Those wacky Battle-Hymn-of-the-Republic singers!

1862 – Louis Pasteur links certain microorganisms to some diseases.
He calls these microorganisms "germs" (meaning origins or seeds) because he
figures they're the starting points for these diseases. Those wacky
bacteria!

1864 – The non-Confederate U.S. issues the first currency with the motto "In God we
trust" on it. It's on a new bronze 2-cent piece that, ironically, contains
less copper than the large 1-cent pieces minted before 1858. They make up for
this by making the new small 1-cent pieces out of bronze too, as everybody
miraculously seems to have forgotten about the old bronze Large Cents and about the
nickel content of small 1-cent pieces through the year before. Those wacky
Yankees!

1865 – The Confederacy loses the Civil War, stops being the Confederacy,
and gets 12 years of Northern occupation shoved down its throat. Every
single government conspiracy and government take-over theory invented by
southerners since then claims that all the trouble began here. That's
right: the cover-up at Roswell, Income Tax, the Social Secuity administration,
fluoridated water, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Grassy
Knoll, Elvis, Project HAARP — they can all be traced back to the Civil
War. Learn something new every day, don'tcha? That wacky
Reconstruction Period!

That very same year – Lister invents disinfection. Unlike his
predecessor, Semmelweiss (who was about as charismatic as a raving loon), he draws
a link between Pasteur's discovery of "germs" and infection, giving his technique
of scrubbing with carbolic acid the oomph it needs to finally catch on. Well,
that, plus he successfully uses disinfection to operate on Queen Victoria.
That wacky surgical stench!

1866 – "In God we trust" added to the quarter, half-dollar, and dollar coin in the
U.S.. You'd think that after the Civil War, they'd be more amenable to "E
pluribus unum", which was on some U.S. coins as early as 1796. Those wacky
religious fanatics!

1868 – J. W. Hyatt invents celluloid, the first artificial plastic. This
eventually leads to prefabricated houses, a reduction in the ivory market, credit
cards, pictures you can project on a screen by shining light through them,
lightweight versions of just about everything, and cheap toys in breakfast cereal
boxes. That wacky non-bio-degradable petroleum-based building material!

1869 – Ditchdiggers extend the Gulf of Suez so far north that it runs into the
Mediterranean Sea. The Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads finish
construction, creating an uninterrupted 3000-mile-long choo choo train link between
the east and west coasts of North America. Along the way, every single
Western town had the railroad coming through, if you believe those cowboy
movies. Those wacky gold and silver spikes!

Mid to Late 1800s – Nikola Tesla invents fluorescent lights, enormous transformers,
the notion that AC electric power distribution is better than DC, the radio, and a
whole bunch of other things that the patent office would probably reject if he
tried to patent them nowadays. That wacky . . . say, he really
was wacky, wasn't he?

1870 – John D. Rockefeller forms Standard Oil, which turns crude sludge pumped out
of the ground into valuable kerosene (and a useless waste by-product called
gasoline) while liberating a few pollutants in the process. He ruthlessly
stomps out any upstart little oil company that tries to do the same. That
wacky Rockefeller Foundation!

1873 – Joseph Glidden, Jacob Haish and Isaac Ellwood invent barbed wire,
spelling the end of the Cowboy Era and the beginning of a new defensive
weapon for when we get around to having World War I. Those wacky
American plainsmen!

1880 – The British Perforated Paper Company invents toilet paper.
That wac— all right, what's going on here?!

Late 1800s – Thomas Alva Edison invents the phonograph, the concept of
R&D Labs, the vacuum tube, and pre-packaged electric distribution
networks. He also takes credit for the invention of the lightbulb and
motion pictures. That wacky self-promoter!

1887 – A Polish eye-doctor named Ludoviko L. Zamenhof invents the world's second
artificial language, which he simply calls "La Internacia Lingvo". His
primary aim is to give the 4 warring sectors of Poland a common language so that
they can unite and throw off the yoke of Tsarist Russian occupation. He
publishes this in a book with green stars on the cover (the printer was sold out of
all other binding designs) under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto". It goes
on to become the only "living" artificial language in world history. That
wacky Fundamento!